Naptastic

1. A place of my own.
   • It needs to be on a frequent bus route that takes me directly to church. Riding for an hour is fine; waiting 30 minutes is not.
   • I need enough space that I can empty out my storage unit, hang up all my artwork, set up my lab and musical gear. A studio will not cut it. A one-bedroom would be adequate. I could make full use of a two-bedroom. More than that would be a waste.
   • I need enough privacy that I can be awake or asleep at unusual hours and it's not going to bother anybody. I need to be able to play the accordion at 2:00 in the morning and it's not going to bother anybody. I need to be left alone almost all the time and people have to understand, solitude is part of the creative process. Forcing contact is just frustrating.
   • I need to be able to have overnight guests.
2. Health insurance. (Care a la carte is possible, but inadvisable.)
3. Enough cash to pay bills, buy groceries, pay bus fare, and, generally, exercise basic agency.
   • People are going to be uptight about this. There needs to be a single assigned person, and they are the only one who is allowed to tell me to be frugal. Otherwise, everyone and their dog are going to feel entitled to scrutinize and question my purchases.
   • Honestly, I could do better in terms of being frugal. Someday I would like to do the entire Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, three different pies, and have it be the cheapest meal of the year. In the meantime I am practicing turning my computer off at night and reconfiguring things to use less electricity.

Salt Lake or Houston can satisfy this.

Reinvesting our growth in helping more people.

Covenant groups around:

• Empty bedrooms and getting people into them (temporary housing)
• Density, and the larger problem that there isn't enough housing

At this point we're doing possibly three different things at the same time. That's okay as long as it's organized right.

FUMC or Emerson can do this, though there would be substantially more friction at Emerson. (But FUMC has many fewer spare bedrooms.)

Scaling.

SCALING FAST IS NOT AS USEFUL AS GETTING COPIED.

Not gonna lie, Emerson kinda sucks at outreach. We would need, like, professional training for volunteers who are going to be liaisons to our partner organizations… FUMC already has most of that figured out.

(this is written kind of nastily. Sorry. That's just where I am right now.)

1. Fixing the dysfunctional, car-dependent design of our cities is one of the biggest things we could do to fight climate change. But we're on the wrong side of basically all of it; why?
2. Emerson dies if it does not feed the hobo. We all know the trajectory it's on. Are we brave enough to talk about why?
   • No one wants to evangelize for a church with so little to recommend it.
   • No one wants to be part of a church that calls itself a “community”, but it's really everyone for themselves.
   • No one is going to join a church that stood by, watched, and did nothing, while a long-time member, friend, and contributor, died in the streets.
   • What's the point of the land acknowledgment every week if we're not going to pursue any kind of land justice?
   • Is a person's worth really “inherent” if we put conditions on feeding and sheltering them?

• How does this covenant (for lack of a better word) get structured? There is a LOT of trust to rebuild.
• Who is open to helping? There are multiple roles to play here: benefactor, advocate, organizer.
• Who would be more open to helping if they knew more people were on board?
• What talking points will reach which people?

• Structure, goddammit.
• Feedback and continuous course correction.
• Documentation of things as they happen.